Folks --
A film I'm making with producers Don Murphy and Carol Lewis was recently announced in several news stories. The project is called SLIDE, and it deals with the alleged kidnapping of Jimi Hendrix, the greatest rock guitarist of all time.
Some of the initial coverage used the word "fiction" to describe this project. After digging into the various accounts of Jimi's kidnapping and dramatizing what seemed to me the most likely sequence of events, I would say that's a simplification that borders on inaccuracy.
The finished script is actually inspired by a pervasive story that has circulated for 40 years saying Jimi Hendrix was kidnapped shortly after his performance at Woodstock and held for several days. I did extensive research on Jimi, the incident itself and the period, and discovered among other things that Jimi had told two of his closest associates (including the self-proclaimed "fiancee" who was with him when he died) it was true, though their accounts of what Jimi said happened varied. The details died with the participants, but there's strong circumstantial evidence something occurred, and the known facts, including the actual murder of a Hendrix associate during the same time period, have all been adhered to in SLIDE.
SLIDE is therefore much more grounded in actual events than, say, ME AND ORSON WELLES or LAST KING OF SCOTLAND, to name two films that blend real events and actual personages with created characters.
And additional reports that Jimi teaches one of his kidnappers some sort of a life lesson are news to me. Nothing like that is in the script, and nothing like that will be in the movie.
It's inevitable that reporting on something that hasn't happened yet will contain speculation, so no harm no foul. Still, at this point in the process, I'm pretty much the only one who in a sense has seen the movie. So I thought it would be a good thing to add my voice to the dialogue.
Despite the fact that SLIDE necessarily contains conjecture and speculation (for no definitive version of this story exists), I promise to do my best to make the depiction of Jimi within it as truthful as humanly possible.
best, R. H. Greene
